A neurobiological work in progress

The Reynolds Pamphlet

So last week, the work peeps discovered this blog. (That has been public for four years. That has been linked on my public Instagram profile for over a year. But I digress.) They treated it as news: “Have you read this?!” “DAMN!” And as the wildfire spread, the messages started pouring in from people who 1) let me know that I was being talked about (insert Home Alone ‘Oh, no!’ face here) or, 2) who ‘knew’ who I was writing about, and “is it really true?!” or, 3) How could I write that about them???? Because Americans are, at baseline, popcorn-eating, train-wreck-watching gossip-hounds who are ALWAYS better than you.

Of course they missed the REAL point of it all, so I will reiterate.

My truth will set me free.

This blog is my truth. Where I cheat on my husband, ask for boyfriends, admit I’m a slut, confess to some BDSM and tell you, without apology, that the video is out there. This is the place where I admit that my children eat chips for breakfast and cheerios for dinner. Where I admit that I’m medicated and at one point carried a scalpel in my backpack in case I needed to kill myself. (yes, I know where the femoral artery is.) This is the place where I throw that shit in your face, and dare you to confront me with it. Go ahead. Make my day.

Because the work of keeping secrets and the fear of discovery becomes a weight that crushes me. Keeping up appearances so that he/she/they won’t see the disgusting thing I am is like hitting the refresh button on the ‘tapes in my head’ that tell me I’m worthless and stupid, and to sit down and shut up because who the hell do I think I am, taking up space and breathing the air? I don’t edit because, fuck that.

It was a shit ton of work to say ‘fuck that.’ There were for damn sure some consequences. I lost friends, I lost jobs, a couple of fuckboys, and a mother. I also lost the tightness in my chest that came with not being good enough. I lost the weight of fear and learned that judgy people are generally blowhards without real power. I learned that I can have boundaries and that they can remain structurally intact in the face of attempted breach. I learned that nothing bad happens if people don’t like me, and that nothing bad happens if I don’t like them. In short; all the emotional baggage of my first 40 years was nothing but the emperor’s new clothes. And so now I’m over here like, head high, finger higher, and zero fucks given, laughing maniacally.